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Echoes of the Cracow Insurrection and the Dissolution of the Republic of Cracow (1846) in the Spanish Press

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Abstract

This article looks at the coverage of the Cracow Insurrection and the dissolution of the Republic of Cracow (1846) in the Spanish press. An analysis of the reports and interpretations of the peasant jacquerie (Rabacja), disagreements between Poles living in Poland and Polish emigrés, and tensions between the Catholic and Orthodox churches is followed by a review of the Spanish assessments of the causes of Poland's fall as well as speculations about probable effects of the insurrection, the ways it may resemble the Peninsular War (1808-1814), and the consequences of its failure on the political situation in Europe. The Spanish commentators usually inform their readers about Cracow's symbolic role as a cultural and political centre of a dissolved Polish before discussing the reactions of Britain, France, and Spain (an ally of France) to the annexation of the Republic of Cracow by the Austria-Hungary. One aspect of the Spanish echoes of the events of 1846 in Poland, which has been hardly noticed in Polish historiography, is the link between the connivance of the partitioning powers to the dissolution of the Republic of Cracow (which owed its formation to the Congress of Vienna in 1815) and the marriage of Infanta Louisa Fernanda, sister of Queen Isabella II of Spain, to Antoine Philippe Louis d'Orleans, Duke of Montpensier, the fifth son of Louis-Philippe of France. The article concludes with an assessment of the attitudes of the Spanish press and government to the Polish question in the 19th century.

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